Marie Ferrarella - An Abundance of Babies

“With who?” Stephanie had no idea what he was talking about.

“Your significant other.”

“You keep saying that, but there is no significant other.”

He studied her, wondering how much she’d changed in the last seven years. “Then it was casual?”

Her patience felt like a wet tissue, about to dissolve. “Was what casual?”

Frustration took a second pass at him. “You got pregnant, and as far as I know, there’s only been one Immaculate Conception on record.”

Stephanie drew herself up, squaring her shoulders. “Yes, but there’ve been a great many in vitro fertilizations since then.”

“In vitro…” He stared at her as his voice trailed away. “Why would you do that?”

“You don’t have the right to ask me questions like that anymore.”

www.millsandboon.co.uk

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA Award-winning author has one goal: to entertain, to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over a hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

It had been more than a week and she still couldn’t shake free of the feeling that her whole world was crashing in on her.

It was hard to focus, to try to pull herself out of this latest tailspin her life had gone into. Hard to put one foot in front of the other and go on. Though a child of luxury who had never wanted for anything, at least financially, Stephanie Yarbourough was no stranger to the tough curves and hardballs life could, without warning, suddenly throw at her. So far, she’d managed to dodge them all.

First there’d been her mother. Joan Yarbourough had just picked up and disappeared, without so much as a card at Christmas to show that she still remembered she had left behind a daughter as well as a stepson when she’d walked out on her husband. It had taken time, but she’d gotten over that, Stephanie thought. Gotten over being forgotten at eight.

And then there’d been Sebastian. He’s disappeared out of her life the summer before she turned twenty-one and she’d gotten over that, too, hadn’t she?

Well, maybe not altogether, but at least to the point where she’d become a functioning human being again, able to go on with her life. Anger had helped then. Anger had coated the hurt, the searing, bottomless pain of being summarily rejected without so much as a word of explanation.

But this latest pitch that fate had hurled at her had hit her right between the eyes. After this one she just didn’t know if she was going to be able to summon the wherewithal to pull herself together again.

She felt the kick. Or was that kicks? They came in quick succession, like dancers in a syncopated line, as if to remind her that she was never alone.

She had no choice but to pull herself together, Stephanie told herself sternly, feeling her eyes beginning to sting. This wasn’t just about her, but about the babies she was carrying. This had happened to them as well as to her.

Maybe even more.

Her mouth curved sadly as she lay her hand protectively over her swollen belly. Holly and Brett’s babies.

Except that they were never going to be able to hold them, not now.

Not ever.

“Are you all right, Ms. Yarbourough?”

Blinking, she looked up to see the pharmacist looking at her over the raised counter. There was a touch of concern in his brown eyes.

“What?”

The concern deepened a degree as the old man looked at her more closely. “I said, ‘Are you all right, Ms. Yarbourough?’ You stopped signing the charge slip and looked as if you were somewhere else miles away from here.”

The rueful smile came and went, replaced by a complacent one. Facades had always been part of her world and she had learned her lesson well at her father’s knee: never let them know what you’re thinking.

Stephanie finished signing the slip and offered it back to the white-haired man.

“I was.”

“Hopefully it was some place air-conditioned.” Silas Abernathy chuckled, separating the yellow copy from the others and snapping it off. He offered the slip to her. She noticed that a thatch of his hair was pasted to his forehead. “These voluntary brown-outs are a bear.”

“A little air is better than none,” Stephanie murmured philosophically, absently dropping the charge slip into her purse. Weather, a nice, banal topic, she thought.

A wave of bitterness swept over her the next moment as she snapped her purse shut. Unseasonable heat had been the reason Holly and Brett had decided to go off on an impromptu, three-day vacation. A vacation they’d invited her to share, but, miserably uncomfortable in her condition, she’d opted to remain home.

If she hadn’t…

Stephanie shut the thought away. No sense in going there.

“Good attitude,” Mr. Abernathy was saying, slipping her prescription into a small, slim bag. “Wish all my customers thought like you did. Can’t tell you how many come in here, complaining about the lack of air in the store. As if it was my idea to cut down on the power.” He shook his head. “And they’re not even in your condition.” He held out the bag to her, his eyes on her very swollen belly, a belly no amount of fabric, with its artful folds and layers, could any longer disguise. “Any day now, huh?”

Because the man was as old as her grandfather would have been had he lived, and just as kindly, Stephanie took no offense at the very personal probing, though these last few days, she’d taken offense at almost anything.

“Any day now,” she confirmed brightly.

And much, much too soon, she thought, taking the small paper bag with her prenatal vitamins in them. Extra prenatal vitamins her obstetrician, Sheila Pollack, had prescribed because she was still so dangerously anemic. The babies were taking a lot out of her.

She wasn’t ready.

Wasn’t ready to greet these babies she’d suddenly been placed in sole charge of. They weren’t supposed to be her babies, they were supposed to belong to Brett and Holly. She didn’t know if she could love them the way they were meant to be loved.

Holly and Brett had been so eager, so filled with love for them from the very first moment the test had turned positive.

Maybe even before.

Murmuring something that passed for “goodbye,” Stephanie turned away from the counter and made her way to the pharmacy’s electronic doors, feeling not unlike a lumbering bear.

The doors yawned open as she approached. With the doors no longer acting as a barrier, a blast of heat came at her.

She bit her lower lip as she stepped outside and the southern California heat surrounded her in an atypically hot, sweaty embrace. Even the air she drew into her lungs was heavy, daunting.

It was all supposed to have been so straightforward, so easy. Far less complicated than most surrogate mother arrangements. Her brother, Matthew, a corporate attorney, had insisted on documents being signed, though she’d never felt the need for that.